Saint John Henry Newman and the Archangel Michael

Our Lovers of Newman group met in September to read a Parochial and Plain Sermon delivered by John Henry Newman on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel (Michaelmas) in 1831, "The Powers of Nature" with the introductory verse of "Who maketh His Angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire." Psalm 104:4:

ON today's Festival it well becomes us to direct our minds to the thought of those Blessed Servants of God, who have never tasted of sin; who are among us, though unseen, ever serving God joyfully on earth as well as in heaven; who minister, through their Maker's condescending will, to the redeemed in Christ, the heirs of salvation.

There have been ages of the world, in which men have thought too much of Angels, and paid them excessive honour; honoured them so perversely as to forget the supreme worship due to Almighty God. This is the sin of a dark age. But the sin of what is called an educated age, such as our own, is just the reverse: to account slightly of them, or not at all; to ascribe all we see around us, not to their agency, but to certain assumed laws of nature. This, I say, is likely to be our {359} sin, in proportion as we are initiated into the learning of this world;—and this is the danger of many (so called) philosophical pursuits, now in fashion, and recommended zealously to the notice of large portions of the community, hitherto strangers to them,—chemistry, geology, and the like; the danger, that is, of resting in things seen, and forgetting unseen things, and our ignorance about them. . . .

Please read the rest there, if you like.

Reading this sermon led us to consider how much devotion Newman had to the Angels and Archangels throughout his life and this devotion is expressed in his works. 

The Dream of Gerontius is filled with Angels: the Soul's Guardian Angel, the five Angelical Choirs, Angels of the Sacred Stair, the Angel of the Agony, even the Fallen Angels (Demons).

Newman wrote poetry about the Angels, including "Angelic Guidance". 

"The Pillar of the Cloud" ("Lead, Kindly Light") ends with the poignant lines:

And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

And this 1853 verse addressed to his Guardian Angel.

But, most appropriate for today, he wrote this poem about St. Michael the Archangel as a hymn at the Oratory in 1862:

THOU champion high  

Of Heaven's imperial Bride, 

For ever waiting on her eye, 

Before her onward path, and at her side,

In war her guard secure, by night her ready guide!

To thee was given,  

When those false angels rose 

Against the Majesty of Heaven, 

To hurl them down the steep, and on them close

The prison where they roam in hopeless unrepose.

Thee, Michael, thee, 

When sight and breathing fail, 

The disembodied soul shall see; 

The pardon'd soul with solemn joy shall hail,

When holiest rites are spent, and tears no more avail.{322}

And thou, at last, 

When Time itself must die, 

Shalt sound that dread and piercing blast, 

To wake the dead, and rend the vaulted sky,

And summon all to meet the Omniscient Judge on high.

Image Credit (Public Domain): Le Grand Saint Michel, 1518, by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), Archangel Michael defeating evil.